10 hours ago
As Donkey Kong Bananza reveals full-blown voice acting, Pokemon fans are wondering when they will be spared from the awkward silences
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As Donkey Kong Bananza was revealed to have a pretty substantial amount of voice acting, Pokemon fans are once again looking at their plate and realizing the RPG series may be lagging behind somewhat.
I don't think I need to recount the story of Pokemon's run on Nintendo Switch, from the Dexit controversy of Sword and Shield, to the disastrous launch of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, which still run very poorly on Switch 1. While both pairs of games still sold extremely well, it did create a level of unease and dissatisfaction within the Pokemon fandom as fans reckoned the franchise deserved better than what we were getting.
And while the free update on Switch 2 for Scarlet and Violet has shown there's a strong Pokemon game under all the mess, fans are looking at Nintendo's other series' with a bit of envy. The Nintendo Direct dedicated to Donkey Kong Bananza revealed that Pauline is a new companion character, with full-blown voice acting at that. Naturally, Pokemon fans were shocked that the funny punching gorilla game got voice acting before the series of dialogue-heavy RPGs did.
Nintendo streamer ActualAero reshared a clip of Pauline talking on their Twitter, saying: "Game Freak I'm being so serious when I say if you debut the milestone Pokemon generation X on Nintendo Switch 2 with silent, awkward [as fuck] cutscenes like this again we're gonna have problems." They post a clip from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, featuring your main rival Nemona speaking and laughing in complete silence. And as awkward as that scene is, it's far from the worst, with Piers' singing scene from Sword and Shield being a different beast entirely.
Saying that, I'm not sure it's something that's likely to happen anytime soon, as even a game as prolifically broken as Scarlet and Violet still became the sixth best selling Switch game ever made, so from Game Freak's perspective, I can't imagine there's too much incentive to add voice acting to the upcoming tenth generation of Pokemon. But Pokemon fans do deserve better, so let's have a bit of hope.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet speedruns are in a different league on Switch 2, with a day-one attempt already coming in around half an hour faster than the old world record.
